The Price of Tourism - A Burden or a Benefit?

I have travelled a lot, but I find myself questioning the validity of Tourism more & more.  Almost all human actions have good & bad repercussions, often things we haven't anticipated. Holidays are important in our busy lives, but I do think we need to be aware of the possible consequences of our actions. I can see it when I go into Oxford, which is literally swamped with tourists & I can see it when I travel abroad.

Tourism puts huge stress on land use & environment leading to:-

• Soil erosion & damage to landscape
• Increased pollution, litter & vandalism
• Increased water use resulting in lowering of the water table
• Habitat loss & impact on endangered species
• Fires
• Traffic congestion  & air quality

There are also a financial issues:-

• Local goods can become expensive because tourists will pay more
• Tipping becomes expected & disproportionately high in comparison to wages
• Changes in the local population's relationship to material goods
• Higher living costs
• Loss of local businesses
• A high proportion of tourism wealth does not filter down to local communities, but goes to big multinational companies.

 Sociological changes:-

• Erosion of local culture 
• Acceptance of "Western" mores which may not be appropriate
• Conflict due to the above

Our desire for more authentic and challenging experiences results in our ever increasing desire to go to more remote destinations, to the few remaining pristine and natural environments left on the planet. Our actions & presence can destroy the things which made tourism develop & flourish in the first place.

Eventually tourism constructs a huge superstructure & infastructure to meet it's needs - hotels, restaurants, shops, roads, water & power supply. The destination develops, more tourists arrive. Their impacts increase accordingly.

There is a huge demand for water. Rivers can be altered, excessively extracted, and polluted by the demands of tourists. Noise & light pollution increase, disturbing wildlife and altering behavior.  Generators provide power & increase noise & pollution. An increase in food and drink consumption creates waste, much of which is not biodegradable.Waste disposal is an issue in places which do not have the sophisticated methods that we are used to in the West.

Tourists can be toxic to both people & places.

 

 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/tourism-four-times-worse-planet-previously-believed

 

Charity Giving, Philanthropy & Volunteering.

I have been asked to do a Blog on the above from the perspective of a donor & volunteer. I believe the two go very much hand in hand. Sometimes money isn't the best way to give support - skills, experience & expertise may achieve more. So being prepared to give time as well as money is important.

For years I have felt very priveleged in being relatively well off in comparison to so much of the world. Also having had a very good, free, education, which opened doors to that finacial freedom. In turn that gave me the ability to travel extensively & often independently to very different cultures. When you are able to see, first hand, just how much you take for granted, I don't understand how anyone can ignore the impetus to share with the less fortunate.

Decision made - how & what do you give? Orthodox Jews give 10% of their income. Muslims give 2.5%. Christians apparently decide for themselves what, if anything, to give.

Money is the easiest in some ways. Everyone in the UK is faced with a myriad charities asking for money, in various ways, every day. Some of the demands are more acceptable than others. I never give to chuggers, or paid people who knock on my door. I don't tend to give to the huge international charities who have a very big infrastructure of admin people & managers to support - Except when there is a big disaster which necessitates the organisation & networks they have in place.

I give to small, niche, charities. I have particular charitable areas I support - Education, Women, Ecology, Health, Homelessness, Hunger, Refugees....

I do my research. I check out the financials - https://www.charityfinancials.com/marketing.php
https://www.charitychoice.co.uk/charities  I talk to people who work in the charity sector & get their advice.

I have a portfolio of monthly direct debits which I have added to over the years instead of sending Christmas cards & giving presents, other than to my immediate small family. I have also started to give a no strings attached, bigger annual lump sum, to one or two charities. I work on the principle that the charity should know best where the money should go. Most of my money will go to charity when I die & my financial advisor & accountant both suggested that it might be nice to actually begin to see what my money can do whilst I am still around. I discovered that there are actually tax incentives to doing this as another benefit!

I want to be personally involved too. So I have volunteered for a month in Nepal, teaching in a "Bamboo Schol". I have also worked in Malawi for a month writing a training programme for Branch Managers who are at the chalk face of distributing small loans to women to set up small businesses. Currently there is a possibility I may go out to South Sudan to help with an education charity & work in Kenya with a Trust set up to help Masai tribespeople. I feel I get much more from these experiences than I give, but I would only do this if there was a proper job for me to do utilising my skill set & experience. "Poverty Tourism" is not what I am about. Philanthropists receive from giving.
https://www.livemint.com/Consumer/r6LCqFBB1nipSbQ2Ee3lmM/The-soft-power-of-charity.html

Any way of working with or for people who are less fortunate should be carefully thought through, whether it is here at home or abroad. I think donors & volunteers have a huge responsibility to be well informed & considerate. Intervention should not be interfering, however good the intentions. The ways of the West are not always the right ways or the only ways. A helping hand does not necessarily involve a bag full of money - small interventions are often the most effective.

Charities have a responsibility too. They need to nurture their donors in this age of austerity. They need to keep them well informed & find out everything they have to offer, not just financial help.

Nothing Lasts Forever - What a Waste

We accept "built in obsolescence". We don't repair anything nowadays - we just buy a new one. Big businesses are profitable because we are conditioned to do that.  The skills of the repairman have been almost completely lost. No one would know where to start to repair something, even if you could buy the parts. Anyway we are all too busy to have the time.

We want the latest model, so new models of almost anything are brought out at least annually & often much more frequently. There is nothing wrong with your mobile phone, but you need to upgrade - the mobile companies obligingly tell you & you rush to the store to comply, spending a fortune - unnecessarily.

Food is programmed with convenient labels to tell you the "best before" or "use by" date. People don't bother to look at the food or smell it to see if it has gone off - they just throw it away. Is it really to do with any danger eating the food might present, which wouldn't be overcome by cooking it? No, it's so you will buy more, thereby increasing the food manufacturers profits. 

Everything from "fashion clothes" to kitchens & bathrooms is disposable. You are actively encouraged to see things as a "fashion statement" about yourself. How much taste or money you have. (Or how gullible you are!). Nothing is made to last. Craftsmanship goes out of the window. Cheap "mass production", often abroad, is the rule of the day. Just keep the wheels turning & the money flowing out of your pocket & into the big companies. Consumerism is king.

We are now reaping the harvest of this - We have literally created mountains of waste which will never disappear. In the process we have wasted unbelievable quantities of the earth's finite resources.

Individuals change, so relationships go through a constant process of evolution. Friendships & partnerships begin & end. Our social & relationship needs change. The person we thought would be a permanent part of our life, suddenly drives us potty. Or we see that we just don't want to put the effort into maintaining the relationship any more. This is especially true when we are living well into our 80's. 60+ years of happy marriage to one partner is hard to achieve. It requires real effort. Many people want instant gratification, not hard graft.

According to the Dalai Lama, people "pass through the stages of birth to old age, sickness & death. Ageing destroys youth, sickness destroys health, degeneration & death destroys all life". Nothing that is living will last forever. But the corollary to that is that there is always new life. Spring will always follow winter. (Unless we allow climate change to really mess up our planet).

So nothing really does last forever - Unless it's the mountains of waste polluting the whole earth.

Intolerable

"More than can be tolerated or endured. Insufferable. Extremely irritating or annoying".

"Unbearable, insufferable, unsupportable, insupportable, unendurable, beyond endurance, unacceptable, impossible, more than flesh and blood can stand, too much to bear, past bearing, not to be borne, overpowering".

Intolerable Cruelty - Intolerable Behaviour.

Intolerable is a word we use too lightly in the light of the above definitions. If we accept the definitions & something or somebody transgresses any of them we should be moved to action. We should not tolerate the behaviour. We should be roused to do something about the situation immediately. We should stop the behaviour in it's tracks. We should publicly condemn the perpetrator/s.

I can think of many things I find intolerable - Abject poverty - Lack of  basic human needs such as clean water, food, shelter,education, healthcare - Undemocratic regimes who treat people cruelly & unbelievably badly - Politicians who lie - Intolerance of minority groups - Ethnic cleansing - Gross financial disparity / unequal wealth distribution - I could go on....

The fact is that most people know these are intolerable. Most people also do little or nothing about it. Many people feel powerless in the face of power.

The thing is, that if one voice becomes many voices, then the power can slowly move in a different direction. If those voices spread through modern technology it can become a Movement. A Movement can accrue to itself more & more voices & more & more power. All it takes is a voice crying in the wilderness of the internet - "This is wrong" "This should not happen". Anyone can do it. It just takes someone to say out loud this cannot go on.

I wish everyone could realise their own potential for change. I wish everyone could be brave enough to put their hand up & speak - put their head above the parapet - stand up for what is right - speak truth to power - put aside their own self interest.

We are all tolerating the intolerable. Every day we don't speak out. We are complicit in the intolerable.

Intellectual Junk Food

I'm reading a fiction book at the moment, which was given to me on holiday, so not something I chose. It's by a world best selling author who I don't think I have read before. I won't read anything of his again because, as far as I'm concerned, it is on a par with junk food.

I have struggled with just ditching it & moving on to the many books I own which are waiting patiently for me to read them. I find that really difficult to do. I have rarely given up on a book in my life - "Catch 22" did defeat me though, after several attempts.

The thing is my time is increasingly valuable. I really don't want to waste it. I wish I had realised how precious it is when I was much younger, but it has gone. Washed away by tides of things I shouldn't have done, didn't want to do, wasted time on.

I really want to play the piano, paint, read more. I want to learn, challenge my creativity, enjoy what I am doing. One enemy of that freedom is doing the many things I feel I have to do, because there is no one else to do them for me. The other enemy is technology.

I spend far too much time on a computer & watching the TV. In the case of the latter I only watch things I have recorded & therefore selected. But do I really need to spend so much time watching dramas which come & go & add nothing much to my life, although I do enjoy most. I am getting better at deleting before I get hooked. Fortunately I'm not addicted to my smartphone or iPad.

What is the time spent on the computer adding to my life? Well, I research quite a bit, so that is useful. Facebook keeps me in touch with some friends, (actual people I know I might add). Email also does that, plus it is increasingly the way I organise my life. Blogging replaces the close personal relationship I had with my husband. It's no substitute for actually discussing something with a person, but it will do.

My point is that I think we in the 21st centry are in increasingly danger of whiling away our lives on intellectual "junk food". Intelligent adults I know play silly games on their phones or tablets. Not only is this a waste of time in my view, it is solitary. There is no human interaction. Yes I know there are spurious arguments that it may develop this or that skill - Really?

People I know seem addicted to Facebook & post ridiculous video clips of animals doing cute things, or tell me they are in Starbucks, or post endless selfies. How have they got the time to do this? Why aren't they doing something better?

Is it me? Am I just sad? Or is there a lurking danger that this junk food disease will infect the younger generation to a point where there is no cure? Maybe they will be a new super generation with skills we never dreamed of? I'm not optimistic.

The Generation Gap

I listened to a really interesting series on Radio 4 by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks this week - "Morality in the 21st Century". Unfortunately I only dipped in & out, so I will have to listen to the Podcast. Episode 2 was particularly interesting as I have two 13 year old grandsons.

Episode 1: RESPONSIBILITY 9:00am (and 9:30pm) on 3rd September 2018

Episode 2: THE ‘SELFIE GENERATION’ 9:00am (and 9:30pm) on 4th September 2018

Episode 3: IS SOCIETY A MYTH? 9:00am (and 9:30pm) on 5th September 2018

Episode 4: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 9:00am (and 9:30pm) on 6th September 2018

Episode 5: MORAL HEROES 9:00am (and 9:30pm) on 7th September 2018

It covered "Generation K" - https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/generation-k-katniss-noreena-hertz-13387972 

"The Selfie Generation" - https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-our-obsession-with-self-esteem-created-the-selfie-generation

"iGen / GenZ" - https://qz.com/work/1177712/igen-the-new-young-generation-of-workers-is-almost-everything-that-millennials-are-not/  

It seems to me that the size of the generation gap is indicated by the fact that although these terms have been around for a while I have never heard of any of them. I have just been one of those old people who bemoan the fact that smart phones, tablets & laptops seem to be ubiquitous & everyone but me seems to be unable to switch them off or ignore them for a moment. I certainly see them as a health hazard in so many ways, not least that I have to try to avoid bumping into people looking at a screen whilst walking, cycling or even driving.

I still read books, watch TV, talk to people on a landline, send emails via a desktop. I wouldn't dream of checking my phone in a cafe or restaurant. I don't believe that anything in my life is that urgent that I have to stop talking to someone. I look out of the window or at the people on a bus or train, not at a screen. I don't feel the need to be eternally stimulated or play mindless games. I am sceptical about what I see on Facebook. 

I filter information through my brain - I think for myself - I'm active. I guess I will never be inclined to bridge the Generation Gap.

Family Holidays

I have just returned from a wonderful holiday with my family - 5 days on Safari in a Masai Mara Conservancy & 6 days on a beach in Galu Beach in Kenya. Hopefully it will leave us all with some lovely memories. It was a very different holiday than any I have done before for all sorts of reasons.  Hitherto I didn't really "do" holidays, I was more of a "traveller".

I don't think I have ever spent as long with my daughter, son in law & 2 grandsons before. In fact we have rarely been on holiday together - I think this is the 3rd time. I am not used to more or less continuous company now after 9 years of widowhood. So I was a little concerned that there might be tensions. Although we are family, there are marked differences in age, attitude, personality & perspective. Fortunately I don't think it was a problem - but that's just my perspective!

It was a very active holiday for the Safari & very laid back for the Beach. I was concerned about the physical effect on me for the first & wondered whether I would be able to tolerate the inactivity of the second.

The Safari was a constant source or pleasure for me, not just the wildlife, but the ever changing landscape & the people & culture. I have always used distraction technique for pain & it worked. I was totally engaged in what we were seeing & doing despite the unbelievably bumpy 4WD travelling over dirt roads & even no roads. It exceeded all expectations - the wildlife in particular was really amazing. The only thing we didn't see was Rhino. Having a pride of lions of all ages playing round your Toyota Land Cruiser & seeing a lion kill is much more than I could have imagined.

The beach was a surprise too. I probably needed the relaxation of not having to get up very early & spend hours travelling over rough terrain - I was very tired. I did have a really good book & I did enjoy meeting new people, eating good food, & generally doing none of the things I do at home.

The local people we met both in the Safari Camp & the Beach Resort were all wonderful. It is good to realise that poverty in the developed world is not the same as poverty in Africa & other developing nations. The mere fact that I could afford to take my family on this holiday makes me wealthy beyond the imagining of most people we met - apart from the other tourists of course.

I always return from travelling in less fortunate places aware of the accident of birth that made me so lucky to be well fed & cared for, with a well built home, a free health care & education system & no serious worries. Then there is our relatively uncorrupt, democratic government. How to bridge that huge gap is something which I don't know the answer to.

All everyone that I met who looked after us  really wanted was a better life, education & health care & enough food for their children. Half of humanity does not have clean water. It's not a lot to ask. It doesn't seem that we are getting any closer to achieving it for a huge number of people less fortunate than we are.

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. More than 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats